itās not about that i know how to do laundry. itās that when i was four i knew how to fold clothes; small hands working alongside my mother, while my older brother sat and played with his toys. itās that i know what kind of detergent works but my father guesses. itās that in my freshman year of college i had a line of boys who needed me to show them how to use the machine. itās that the first door they knocked on belonged to me. itās that they expected me to know.
itās not that i know how to cook. itās that the biggest christmas present i got was a little plastic kitchenette i never used except to climb on. itās that my brother used it more, his hands ghosting over pink buttons and yellow dials. itās that when my work needs cake for a birthday, they turn to me. i get it from costco. i donāt even like cooking. a boy burns popcorn in the dorm microwave and laughs. a week later, i do the same thing, and he snorts at me,Ā ājust crossed you off my wife list.ā itās that i had heard something like this so many times before that i laughed, too.
itās not that i donāt love being feminine. itās that i came home with bruises from trying to be a trick rider on my bike and heard the wordĀ ātomboy,ā felt my little mouth say,Ā ābut iām not a boy, iām a girlā. itās that they laughed. itās that until i was sitting in my pretty dress and smiling with a big pretty smile and blinking my big pretty eyes, i wasnāt given back the titleĀ āgirlā. itās that until i wore makeup and styled my hair i was bullied; itās that when i donāt wear makeup iām a slob, that my mental health diagnosis hangs on the hook of being dressed up. itās that my therapist sees me returning to bright red lipstick and tells me i am looking happier and i have to explain that i am more sad than i have ever been. itās that i dress myself in as many layers as i can every time i ride a train because itās better to be laughed at than harassed.Ā
itās not that i know how to clean, itās that my brotherās chores were outside where i wanted to be, and mine were inside. itās that i would have weeded the garden better than he did if they had just let me. itās that i am put in charge of fixing otherās messes, expected to comply without complaint.
itās not that i canāt open the jar. itās that you ask my brother first every time. itās that i am pushed into docile positions, trained to believe that my body when itās strong and healthy is ugly, trained into being less, weaker. itās that the jar is also science, is also engineering, is also every job, every opportunity. itās that you laugh faster when he tells a joke, that you take him seriously but wave off me, that when he raises his voice heās assertive but when i do iām hysterical. the jar is getting into a car with a stranger as a driver and wondering if this is our last ride. the jar is knowing that if something happens to us, itās our fault.Ā
itās that iām weak and i donāt know if itās because i just am or i was trained to be. itās that we need to sit pretty with our pretty smiles and our pretty words trapped pretty and silent in our throats, our hands restless but pretty when idle, our bodies vessels for nothing but a future white dress. itās that we are taught someone else needs to open the jar for us.
hereās the secret: run metal lids under hot water, theyāll expand faster than the glass theyāre around. hereās the secret: when you keep us under hot water, we do more than boil. we expand over our edges. and we learn how to open our mouths, our claws, our screams hanging in kites over cities. just give me a chance. give me a chance when i am four when i am seven when i am twenty-three. i promise i can be amazing. give me the jar. iāll show you something.
